Before the Cowboys-Giants game on Sunday, Jason Pierre-Paul—another sports dude with a hyphenated last name, which is just weird, since that is a designation historically used by married women who wanted to hang onto their old identity and incorporate it into the new—promised a Cowboys whooping and a blood-letting, according to Dan Graziano of ESPN.com:

“We’re going to put it on them, man,” Pierre-Paul said. “I’m pretty sure the offense is going to get going. The defense is going to get going even more. And the special teams will contribute to it. It’s going to be a fight. It’s going to be a dogfight. There’s going to be a lot of blood spilled out there.”

Turns out, the only blood spilled was when a celebrating Jason Hatcher, who had two sacks of Eli Manning, smeared his face with fake blood for his post-game interview:

When the media rushed into the Cowboys locker room after Dallas’ last-second win, Hatcher had smeared the fake blood all over his face.

“I just got finished feasting,” Hatcher said as he turned toward reporters, never smiling once. “I just finished eating a Giant. Y’all didn’t see me out there? That’s some leftover blood. They said blood is going to be shed, right?”

Blood or no blood, the Cowboys have placed themselves firmly in the driver’s seat in the NFC East. They are undefeated in the division and tied with the Eagles with a record of 6-5. The division is theirs to lose.

That said, here are my top 10 observations from Sunday’s game:

The slow-starting Giants finally waited too long to get going. They are not a good enough team to leave themselves no margin for error.

“Tony Romo always chokes in big games. He sucks, man.” Only he has the best fourth quarter QB rating in the history of the NFL and he out-dueled the two-time Super Bowl-winning Eli Manning twice this year.

Speaking of Eli, he is, by a country mile and then some, the lesser Manning.

Tom Coughlin, Mr. Discipline, has himself an undisciplined team.

DeMarco Murray appears to have made some business decisions about his health when he trotted out of bounds on plays that seemed to call for dipping his shoulder and plowing ahead.

Jason Hatcher is benefitting as much as anyone on the Cowboys’ defense from the switch to the 4-3 scheme and the coaching of defensive line coach Rod Marinelli.

Jason Witten should always be among the first options in the red zone.

Jason Garrett’s team has flaws, but they don’t quit and they take humiliation (remember the Super Dome) personally.

Jerry Jones was right when he said, “We got about as much mileage out of a win as you can get with this one.” Sunday’s win over the Giants was the pivotal game of the season for this team.

Did I just say Jerry Jone was right? God help us.

And now a tribute to Jason Pierre-Paul from the hyphenated Academy award winning Daniel Day-Lewis in a cut from his epic movie, “There Will Be Blood”…